ISIS kills SDF member in Deir ez-Zor: Monitor

At least one member of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was killed by Islamic State (ISIS) gunmen in eastern Syria’s Deir ez-Zor province, a war monitor reported on Tuesday.

“A member of the SDF was killed after an ISIS cell targeted an SDF military checkpoint near the town of Daranj in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based war monitor.

It is the latest fatality amid an increase in violence in Syria, particularly in areas under Kurdish control.

The Kurdish-led and US-backed SDF, who control northeast Syria (Rojava), fought the lion’s share of the battle against ISIS and arrested thousands of the terror group’s fighters along with their wives and children when they crushed ISIS territorially and took the group’s last stronghold in Syria in 2019.

In late March, the SDF warned that ISIS still poses a threat to the world and the region as its defeat “requires dismantling its ideological breeding ground.”

“ISIS is still trying to recruit new terrorist elements, attempting to radicalize them into its ranks,” said the SDF, calling on the international community to “collaborate effectively” with its forces.

On Thursday, ISIS attacked a vehicle belonging to the Kurdish-led force in Deir ez-Zor and injured at least three members of the SDF.

ISIS rose to power and seized swathes of Iraqi and Syrian land in a brazen offensive in 2014, declaring a so-called “caliphate”.

While the group was declared territorially defeated in 2017 and 2019 respectively, it still continues to pose serious security risks through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions, especially across the vast expanses of the Syrian desert as well as several Iraqi provinces.

ISIS has conducted over 170 attacks in the areas under the control of the SDF since the start of 2024, killing at least 84 people, including 21 civilians, according to SOHR data.

Source » rudaw.net